China’s Baidu launched Apollo World on Tuesday, an AI system designed to simulate real-world environments for training robotaxis and predict how they evolve, as automakers race to cut the cost of developing autonomous vehicles.
\n\nApollo World can generate ”up to 100,000 km” (62,000 miles) of simulated driving daily, equivalent to about three years of real-world testing by a safety-driver-equipped autonomous vehicle, Baidu said. The system is capable of producing real-time multimodal data streams, such as camera and lidar observations, enabling self-driving systems to directly sense and navigate simulated environments.
\n\nBaidu said Apollo World is already being used for training Apollo Go’s robotaxi fleet to be operated globally. Baidu-owned Apollo Go is China’s largest robotaxi service operator and competes with rivals such as WeRide, Pony.ai and Momenta Global.
\n\nVolkswagen’s Chinese partner XPeng also plans to launch robotaxi operations in 2027.
\n\nMorgan Stanley has estimated China’s robotaxi fleet could grow to 1 million vehicles by 2035.
\n\nAlso read: Apple shares slide as higher memory costs fuel margin concerns
\n\nChinese robotaxi firms have largely pursued asset-light expansion strategies, supplying autonomous-driving technology and partnering with automakers, ride-hailing platforms and local fleet operators overseas rather than bearing the full cost of owning and operating fleets.
Original source: https://www.cnbctv18.com/technology/
